


All that we see or seem

by Segolène (SecretSegolene)



Series: Eternal Return [1]
Category: CLAMP - Works, Tokyo Babylon
Genre: Alternate Canon, Chaos, Determinism, Prelude to a larger work in progress, Scenes without a home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:48:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26636104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecretSegolene/pseuds/Segol%C3%A8ne
Summary: Eternal recurrence, or eternal return, is a theory of determinism present in a number of world religions. It states that all cause and effect has been fixed since the first cause set the universe in motion. One answer to this is the hypothesised presence of true randomness. In literary words, we will throw chaos at the stars that crossed our lovers.These are two chapters written for, but which will not be used in, 'Eternal Return' - a work in progress set in several of the endless iterations of Tokyo Babylon. Drawing on the manner of CLAMP, characters resonate with the infinitely unfolding iterations of themselves, like a gong struck through a paper fan. The universe and its events repeat themselves without true beginning or end. Sometimes, the dice stumble on their way from earth to heaven and back again.
Series: Eternal Return [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1937797
Kudos: 3





	1. Yuuko

**Author's Note:**

> Like rainbows, empty shells or shrugged-off skins, please consider this a promise and a misrepresentation of what the final work might be.
> 
> Edgar Allen Poe wrote: _all that we see or seem / is but a dream within a dream_

There are many stories about love, and over time the seller of dreams has heard them all. That's what she would tell you. Every love story, in some form or another, told in verse or prose or coded lines in the sky. Stories of jealousy silenced under marble slabs. Stories of rapture whispered behind hands and tent flaps. Every single one.

This story is about love, and other things. There is jealousy, and there is delight. There is also death and too much sadness to bear. There is a young boy and a young man. There is sometimes a dead girl between them, but the boy no longer remembers this detail.

Yuuko, the peddlar of fates, hated being called that. 

"I sell wishes," she hissed at the elderly fox on her doorstep. "I sell them because I am a merchant. My goods are exquisite and my prices are fair. I do not peddle."

The fox bowed graciously, to the extent that foxes can. The tip of his tail dipped slightly in an insincere gesture of deference. 

"Then, my dreamseller, please sell me what I desire."

"What is it that you desire, my good fox?"

"The barterer of whims means to say that she doesn't know?"

"Don't call me that either," Yuuko said. Then she said, "Of course I know."

"Then, please." The fox bent his front legs again, tail flicking to one side in a most elegant curl, golden eyes downcast and serene. "Name your price."

"For your first wish," the lady said, "I will take your tail. It is a beautiful thing, and you are fond of it."

"You shall have my tail," the fox replied.

"For your second wish," the lady continued, "I must have your eyes. An old fox has seen an irreplaceable lifetime of comings and goings. They will be treasured beyond value by the right customer."

The fox trembled slightly, but he acquiesced with grace.

"Lady, you shall have my golden eyes."

"For your last wish," the lady said, her breath heavy and cold, "The price is not so high as you may fear. You will give me the language of foxes. After I take it, you will continue to hear the voices of your kin. You will, however, no longer understand their language. You will continue to experience your unique thoughts; you will understand warmth and comfort through simple touch. You will give neither and convey none with what will be your voice once I take from you the language of foxes."

The fox's front legs quivered, and the grey-brown fur that tipped the creature's ears and muzzle stood out as trophies displaying the passage of time he had endured. The streaks of grey along his sides and behind his knees showed further evidence of his incredible age among foxes. 

"Well, my gentle fox?"

The fox lowered his muzzle to the floor, and following it his long belly and four thin legs. Curling the lovely tail over his hind legs one last time and closing his eyes on the room, he gave a fleeting thought to his next words - the last that he would know how to speak.

"Dreamseller," he said, "Your price is fair. It shall be as you say."

Once the fox had begun his return home - slowly, as he was blind and had lost the familiar balance of a heavy tail - Yuuko shielded her eyes against the glare of late morning that glanced off the tiled eaves. She watched the old fox stumble to the gate, then gingerly pick his way over the threshold. She sent a soft prayer that the fox would find his happiness anew, whatever form that might take.

A pair of twins, girls in appearance and identical in few outward traits, flanked Yuuko from the open doorway. They each took her hands - one each - in both of their own. 

Maru, the taller of the twins, stood on Yuuko's right. Two bunches of blue hair like long clouds of smoke were gathered on top of her head like antennae. They curled and cascaded the full height of her and trailed their ends on the floor as she walked. 

Moro, the kinder of the twins, stood on Yuuko's left. The hands which gripped Yuuko's were tiny and touched everything with utmost care. Where Maru had the air of a wild mountain goat with great, curled horns, Moro resembled a young ram in no hurry to seek its first fight. A crown of straight, rose-pink hair decorated the edges of Moro's face and lightly tickled her jugular where it flicked inwards just above the collar. Big strawberry eyes watched beside cloudless blue ones. 

The girls were not exactly human, and so weren't strictly girls - not that any of Yuuko's customers could tell. One of Yuuko's more noticeable flaws was her free indulgence in aesthetic whims. She changed clothes anywhere between once and several times each day. On rare occasions that she received warning before the arrival of a customer, she would greet them with an exquisitely put together outfit, chosen to be just right for that occasion.

This time, Yuuko calculated that she had a few minutes before the woman arrived - perhaps more if the guest was as elderly as she perceived. The elderly, Yuuko found, often were the more willing to outsource the fulfilment of their wishes. She led the girls inside, and thought about a spring jacket.

The proprietress of the inter-dimensional shop re-emerged after exactly three minutes, dressed in sleeveless black silk from ankle to throat. A pattern of climbing cherry blossoms clustered along the front hem of a skirt that split to the hip on both sides. The vines and flowers following the slit snaked once around the dress's bodice to bloom in full across Yuuko's upper back. The accents of her shoulder blades gave the embroidery a realistic sense of depth. 

Despite the slit's indecent height, the dress gave nothing away that betrayed the witch's modesty, at least by her own reckoning. Her visitor, the female head of the distinguished family whose predecessors Yuuko happened to know well, looked considerably less impressed on her entry from the courtyard. The lady wore a traditional and full-sleeved kimono, and her grey hair was pulled into a thick bun dressed with a few subtle ornaments. Yuuko's guest spared barely a glance for the sliver of pale skin exposed from heel to hip on the woman she had come to address.

"You are the proprietress of this shop," she said in a tone devoid of a question.

Yuuko inclined her head very slightly. "That is right."

"You have the power to grant improbable wishes," the lady continued, in the same tone as before.

"Some would say so," Yuuko said.

"I wish for my grandson's fate to be free from the Sakurazukamori."

"His fate, you say?" Yuuko asked lightly. "Not his life?"

"What's the difference?" the lady quipped impatiently. "My grandson will live if the Sakurazukamori does not claim that life as he has promised to do."

"And what if," Yuuko said, "The Sakurazukamori does not kill your grandson, and something else does? A faulty rail, perhaps, leading to a train accident. An earthquake or a tidal wave. He might still choke on an apple pip the day after tomorrow, and there is no returning the price that you will have to pay for a wish that will have lost its value."

"Then what do you suggest, sorceress?"

Yuuko lowered her eyelashes and murmured in a voice clearer than silver bells towards the visitor's unwavering gaze, "What I respectfully suggest is that you do not seek a bargain for which you cannot pay."

The lady's mouth stretched thinly and the narrow lines of her eyes followed suit. "Excuse me, sorceress?" Her voice was a dignified, scandalised, hiss.

"Fate is a complex thing," Yuuko answered, to all appearances demure - despite her choice of clothing - but undeterred. "I cannot disentangle two fates that are so strongly resonant with each other. The boy is marked to die." Yuuko met the lady's fearless gaze and spoke with the clarity of undisturbed water in a wide, shallow lake. "He is fated to die with that man's hand through his heart. What's more, and for whatever reasons, their fates look to be tied inextricably together. It is my privilege and my profession to see many realities, as you must be aware, and I do not know a reality in which that is not true."

"Even if I could do such a thing," she added, in a whisper meant to be heard, "You could not afford the price, my lady."

In the seconds of silence that followed, neither the witch nor the woman made a move except to inhale, exhale and slowly blink. Yuuko's expression was elusive as a morning mist. The distinguished lady wore a mask of frozen steel.

"You tell me that my grandson not only must die early, but he must be killed by his family's enemy like a creature on a cat's claw." It was another question without the asking. A habit of office, perhaps.

"If the desire is strong enough, it can override all others," Yuuko said.

"The desire of the Sakurazukamori to kill my grandson is stronger, you say, than my desire to keep him alive."

"That is to be seen," Yuuko replied.

"Over how long?"

"As long as it takes."

Eyes the colour of sunlit moss lingered over Yuuko's violet ones.

"Protect him, sorceress," she said, in a tone that was almost a plea.

"Your enchantments are plenty," Yuuko said, in a tone that was almost reluctance.

"He cannot wear gloves every moment of every day," the lady said, sighing in plain exasperation. "In a few more years, I will no longer be able to keep him by my side. The child is growing up, absorbing the world. Very soon, I expect he will start to defy me. I do not know how the Sakurazukamori likes to hunt. If he comes tomorrow, or next year, or in ten years: please, protect him."

"With whatever power you have that I do not," she continued, "Save him. Please."

Finally, the sorceress had no more half-truths to tell. She said: "I am sorry, my lady, but I would not like to."

"And why not?" came the question, bright with the heat of fury.

"Because there is no guarantee," she answered, "That what I might do would save your grandson, in the end. The universe flirts with chaos just as humans flirt with choice. Because even so, if the timing is wrong when it matters and the spell is futile, the price does not change. There is no price you can give me that will stop the universe from exacting its own."

"Speak clearly." The lady's voice was a command.

"The universe demands an eye for an eye, a life for a life, a soul for a soul."

"He is my grandson." Ice coated each syllable. "An eye, a life, a soul. Take it. None is more important to me than his."

One. Two. A few more seconds. Yuuko counted them silently - time enough for the would-be customer to change her mind. But Yuuko was no longer a child, and she knew she waited for the impossible. She said: "I understand, my lady. Then, I shall first of all require your name."

Yuuko had surprised herself with the way she had defied the head of the Sumeragi. Lady Sumeragi, with whom Yuuko's relationship had up until then been somewhat one-sided, was simply concerned for her heir. Of course, she was concerned for her family member - her grandson - also. The Onmyouji's heart was strong and sought goodness in outcomes. How different she looked now compared to the last time Yuuko had met her. The Lady Sumeragi was not yet the Lady Sumeragi then, a year old and riding in a low cradle on her father's arm. The previous head of the Sumeragi family had brought her to this same shop. He, too, had had a wish.

How long ago that must have been, Yuuko thought, and yet no time at all. The same stories play out day after day. The only things that change are the names of the unwitting actors. Sometimes, like today, not even that.

Yuuko, as was custom, had asked for and been told the lady's name, the day that she was born, and the name of that place of her birth. Of course, it was not for the information that Yuuko had needed to ask. Decades ago, in this very room, _he_ had told her all of these things. But custom was custom, and Yuuko did not like to flout old rules. However, when it became time for the lady to leave, she stood her ground in front of Yuuko once again - to Yuuko's unconcealed amusement.

_You will be missed, Sumeragi head, of that there is no doubt._

"Will you tell me now what I have wished for, sorceress, and what price I have already paid, and what price might still be owed?"

Yuuko answered her with grace, though the question was - characteristically, she supposed now - less question than demand. "You have wished for your grandson to have a chance to live despite the marks on his hands that make him the Sakurazukamori's prey. That is what I have granted, and no more: a chance. Just one. It is itself weak both to the chaos of time and to human will, and it may trigger only too late. Still, it is the best and only chance I can give you for your grandson to be saved from that particular death. Since you do not know when that man might return to collect what he has marked as his, we may prepare only in the most roundabout and tricksy of ways."

The grandmother inclined her head in acceptance. With a fraction less force, she continued: "And the price?"

"Are you asking-" Yuuko tilted her head with an impenetrable expression. "Because you want to know?"

"Tell me."

The Lady Sumeragi's downcast eyes said "please" and also "please don't". Yuuko gave her five full seconds in which to leave without an answer. She sighed.

"The twins," she began, and paused for a reaction. There was none. "I tightened their bond to each other, and took their bond to you in exchange." Barely a flicker of muscle, and not an errant sound. "They will continue to respect you, of course. But soon any love they had felt towards their grandmother will diminish and eventually cease."

"Be assured," Yuuko added, "That the issue of the bond can only impact other matters of emotion. Lessons such as duty, traits like diligence or loyalty - which I'm sure will not be in short supply for the grandchildren of the esteemed thirteenth head of the Sumeragi - are theirs and will continue to be so." 

The elegant lady seemed surprised, confused, and not at all relieved. "That is all?" she asked. Her tone was wary. Her expression was slightly anxious. "That is all that I have taken in exchange for the little I am able to do," Yuuko replied. "You will not forget, I am sure, that should my spell need to be activated, the universe may claim its own price in its own time."

"A life for a life."

"Yes," said Yuuko.

The Lady Sumeragi carried herself out of Yuuko's courtyard as regally as she had entered, but not before she had given Yuuko a lightly inclined bow from the waist. Yuuko returned it with a wave, and said a small prayer to the chaos of the universe, and to human will.

A bubblegum pink head and a cloud of azure blue floated to her left and right. Maru and Moro each held one of her hands in both of theirs. "Twins?" they said, in unison.

"That's right. And they look alike. Like mirror images."

"And one of them's going to die?" Maru said.

"One of them," Yuuko replied. "Yes, probably." 

She looked at the gathering clouds, and imagined the constellations nestled behind. She thought of them congregating and splitting apart and reconvening, of the cold light and the hot core undergoing fusion and possibly collapse somewhere inconceivably distant. She thought of the colours and whispers and promises lying quietly in wait within dense atmospheric mists, and imagined them coming down as rain once the harsh edges of things finally began to dissolve, and the white clouds would be drenched again in night.


	2. Bright star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eternal recurrence, or eternal return, is a theory of determinism present in a number of world religions. It states that all cause and effect has been fixed since the first cause set the universe in motion. One answer to this is the hypothesised presence of true randomness. In literary words, we will throw chaos at the stars that crossed our lovers.
> 
> These are two chapters written for, but which will not be used in, Eternal Return - a work in progress set in several of the endless iterations of Tokyo Babylon. Drawing on the manner of CLAMP, characters resonate with the infinitely unfolding iterations of themselves, like a gong struck through a paper fan. The universe and its events repeat themselves without true beginning or end. Sometimes, the dice stumble on their way from earth to heaven and back again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like rainbows, empty shells or shrugged-off skins, please consider this a promise and a misrepresentation of what the final work might be.
> 
> John Keats wrote: 
> 
> _Bright star! Would I were steadfast as thou art— / Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night / ...gazing on the new soft-fallen mask / Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—_
> 
> -

Sumeragi Subaru and Sumeragi Hokuto were twins. 

They loved this about each other. Since birth, Hokuto and Subaru had been near inseparable. The aunts would joke that Hokuto screamed so loudly in the minutes after she was born because she couldn't wait for Subaru to join her again. 

It made sense. Nine months (thereabouts) in a tight, comfortable space, wanting for neither sustenance nor warmth, and for the whole duration of your consciousness you share this version of heaven with another being. 

It made sense that such a love ran deeper than the marrow in their bones. 

Mr and Mrs Sumeragi were not romantic individuals, but one thing they shared was superstition and an education in the movements of stars. In planning the births of their first children, they had consulted seers, almanacs, priests and of course the head of the Sumeragi family, the children's grandmother-to-be. 

Lady Sumeragi, which was how everybody addressed the head of the clan, was a formidable woman who, by her title and existence, demanded to be admired and obeyed. The household staff had nothing but love for the fierce woman, while strangers and clients did their best to keep their distance in whatever way might least likely be construed as impolite. Lady Sumeragi terrified and inspired. And her grandchildren, she doted upon.

The Sumeragi, you see, had an ancient and deeply spiritual ancestry. In the reign of the Emperor Shouwa, they were the family you called if you had an extremely tricky or dangerous exorcism to be performed. And if you could afford it, of course. The top spiritual practitioners in the country were not engaged for less than a small fortune.

Seated below the head of the family, many of its members - nieces and nephews of the lady dowager - were also skilled in the Arts of Onmyoudo, and represented the family in its services at a much more reasonable cost to the average salary-earning citizen. 

Like any business, especially an ancient family business such as this one, there were matters of pride and professionalism that insisted on being rigorously upheld. There was no disentangling the two. Their art was in their blood, and their life was their art. The decades turned, and men and women lost their contentment with peaceful living in favour of bustle and distraction. Money became the currency of happiness. Romance superseded love.

The first twin born was a girl. Her parents named her after the Plough, or the Big Dipper, or the Bear or the Sages depending on where you were raised. They hoped that Hokuto would be as bright as the seven stars together, and a beacon to guide her twin at all times.

The second was a boy. Not to be outdone, they gave him the name of the Pleiades. Two constellations that could dazzle in their own way - their children. They hoped that their son, Subaru, would be as beautiful as his namesake and pure-hearted as the sisters of legend. 

When the twins were finally handed into their grandmother's arms, she whispered through real tears that her ageing heart just might burst from the sight of them together.

Subaru and Hokuto. The heir of the Sumeragi and the sister who loved him above all others alive and dead. Unknown to them, their fates so closely intertwined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _And the flames consuming Babylon_  
>  _Threw debris at the cloudless night,_  
>  _A hailstorm of burning stone,_  
>  _Fireworks for your delight!_


End file.
